Monday, June 23, 2014

UN Elects
Ugandan as President, Pushing Back on US LGBT Pressure

By Wendy Wright

NEW YORK, June 20 (C-FAM) Western
pressure on African countries to liberalize policies on homosexuality has had a
boomerang effect, uniting Africans against it and resulting in what some see as
a new non-aligned movement of countries.

Last week the United Nations
elected a Ugandan as president of the General Assembly over last-ditch
efforts by activists who, along with the Obama administration, have condemned
Uganda’s recently enacted law against homosexual acts.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT) activists called on the Obama administration to deny Sam
Kutesa's visa, but by election day at the UN, their petition had only gathered 13,466 signatures.

Kutesa is Uganda’s foreign minister
and defended the law internationally, stating promotion and exhibition of
homosexuality “is wrong for our young people and it offends our culture.”

Africans called Western criticism
of Uganda an attack on national sovereignty and some noted, “the Western world criminalizes almost all of
these same offenses” as the amended law, such as homosexual rape.

The role of president of the
General Assembly is symbolic though prominent. The highest profile task is
presiding over the assembly as heads of state address its 193 members each
year.

The position is rotated annually
among regions. It is Africa’s turn, and the African Union--most of which ban
homosexual acts--put forward only one candidate.

In February, Uganda’s President Museveni hinted he sought closer military ties to Russia
because of U.S. meddling on LGBT issues. Russia has also defied criticism of
its ban on exposing children to homosexual propaganda.

Former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton launched the first salvo for international LGBT rights in a speech at
the UN in 2011. Soon after, President Obama announced he would condition
foreign aid on LGBT rights.

African leaders predicted the U.S. policy would provoke a
“significant diplomatic confrontation.” Kenyans said, “Those who live as gays
need help to live right and we should not be supporting them to live in a wrong
reality.”

In March, Africans were forced to abandon their resolution on AIDS after it was amended by
governments advocating for sexual rights. The resolution sponsored by African
countries struggling with the deadly disease was tailored to address public
health and protecting women and girls.

European, U.S., and Latin American
delegates, who view AIDS as a political opportunity to advance sexual rights,
demanded the resolution remove references to reducing the number of sexual
partners and delaying sexual initiation.

After Western countries lost in
lengthy negotiations, they eventually outmaneuvered the Africans using a
technicality in the last moments of the conference. One disheartened African
delegate said, “It’s all about sex, sex, sex for them.”

A senior U.S. diplomat recently
warned about the Obama administration’s heavy-handed approach, CNSNews
reports. Richard Hoagland co-hosted the first LGBT “pride celebration” at
the U.S. embassy in Pakistan in 2011. A week later, protesters said the U.S.
had “unleashed cultural terrorism on us.”

Speaking at an event on global LGBT
rights, Hoagland cautioned some countries “will react to our values and goals
with backlash” against homosexuality.

Last week a U.S. senator introduced a bill to make LGBT rights a permanent feature
of U.S. foreign policy.